First Look: XOLO BLACK 1X
After the launch of the bigger brother
XOLO brings to us it's younger sibling . Though priced at a lower price-range this device feels much more premium, don't be fooled by it's form factor this is a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Compared to the Original
BLACK this comes with a more compact display size of 5 inches, still keeps the same resolution of 1080p which translates to a higher ppi of 441. Under the hood it runs on a Octa-Core Mediatek MT6753 clocked at 1.3 Ghz coupled with 3GB of LPDDR3 RAM and 32GB of Internal Storage all for Rs9999. That's a Sweet Deal!
Talking about Sweets it runs on Android 5.1 Lollipop underneath the HIVE Skin.
Key Features
- Dual-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE; quad-band 3G with HSPA; 4G-LTE
- Dual-SIM (Nano + Nano/MicroSD Hybrid)
- 5.0" 16M-color 1080p IPS-OGS capacitive touchscreen; 80% NTSC Gamut coverage
- Dragontrail Protection
- Android OS v5.1 Lollipop with HIVE UI
- Octa-core 1.3 GHz Cortex A53 CPU, Mali T720MP3 GPU; MediaTek MT6753 chipset
- 3GB of LPDDR3 RAM
- 13 MP ISOCELL camera with phase-detect autofocus, 1/2.6" sensor and LED flash
- 1080p video recording @ 30fps
- 5 MP front-facing camera, 480p video recording
- Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct
- GPS with A-GPS, GLONASS
- 32GB of built-in storage
- microSD card slot; Upto 128GB (Hybrid-SIM)
- microUSB 2.0 port with USB OTG
- Bluetooth v4.0
- Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
- Accelerometer, 3-axis GyroScope, Magnetometer, Gravity Sensor, Light and proximity sensor
- 2,400mAh battery
Main disadvantages
Hybrid SIM Slot; Though the device has ample storage of 32GB
Below Average Front Camera
Design and Build Quality
Build Quality is good. The device is super-light but feels sturdy in hand, the device has a glass finish on the back leather textured finish on top and bottom with metal on the sides.
It weighs on 125gm and is 7.6mm thin, it's a very unique looking device and is certain to catch a lot of eyes.
We give XOLO a thumbs up for such a premium looking device as so low price.
There's metal lining around the display,camera and flash which gives it a vertu like looks.
The Front has the earpiece and beside it resides the 5MP camera with Flash, the Notification LED and the light and proximity sensors, Below the display are 3 Capacitive touch buttons for Menu, Home and Back and they don't light up when pressed.
On the Top there's a 3.5mm Earphone Jack
On the Bottom there's the Micro-USB port with OTG support and the Speaker and Microphone Grills
On the Right side there's the Hybrid SIM card/MicroSD card Slot
On the Left there's the Volume Rocker and Lock/Power Button.
The back is made of Fibre Glass and Front has Dragontrail Glass Protection,
The Back has XOLO Branding on it.
Overall the design is minimalistic but the materials used are over the top.
Display
The Display on the device is a 5" 1080p Display with a PPI of 441. The color reproduction though not the best but very good for the price. The viewing angles are excellent there's no loss of color even it seen at a angle of 170 degrees.
The contrast is good the blacks are deep but has a very slight yellow tint to it.
It has MediaTek Patented MiraVision Engine for better color reproduction which has a Standard, Vivid and User Modes.
In the user mode you can change the contrast, Saturation, Brightness, Sharpness and color temperature according to your taste.
Theres also a Dynamic Contrast Mode.
User Interface
The UI is almost Stock Android with a little pinch of
HIVE to it.
HIVE features include a theme engine with EDGE, you can also change icons with it. Other thsn that you have Underground App Hider , Secure, FusionX Music Player and Comet Browser powered by Opera.
We liked the BLAWB icon pack on Android Classic theme.
The UI is smooth and fluid with no lags, the Apps open fast there's no issue with Multitasking as we have around 2.5 GB of RAM Free on first boot.
Camera
The Rear camera is a 13MP Samsung made unit with a LED flash and Phase Detection AutoFocus which claims to focus in 0.15 seconds
We tested the camera it's not the best but it's good for casual camera users, the colors are accurate and not oversaturated, we felt the brightness of the shots to be little low than our 8x-1000.
The Front camera is not good colors and brightness is poor, the front flash helps a little.
